A defence budget cannot easily price wars that were never fought because credible forces deterred them. Carrier deployments and demonstrative overflights can persuade another government that escalation is no longer attractive. Those quiet outcomes rarely appear as a measurable return on procurement spending. Maintaining enough force for deterrence remains a difficult judgement, but avoided conflict saves political and financial capital and, above all, human lives.
Notable Point · 49:39-51:27
Pricing the wars that deterrence prevents
Procurement accounts record the cost of forces, but not the political, financial, and human cost of confrontations those forces cause an opponent to abandon.